Available modes for non-indexed webvideo

[dinkypumpkin]

On 06/02/2013 17:45, Vangelis forthnet wrote:
> Is there any other proper way in this case, that eludes me, for finding
> out the available
> modes before the actual download?
> I can do it manually, by first finding vPID at:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlist/p014n619
> (which is p014n61d) & then view the available streams at:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream/p014n61d
> but how to do it with GIP?
> (as far as the actual download is concerned, I know that using
> --modes=best will get me the best available quality (i.e. flashvhigh),
> but this
> is not my original query...)

I think you may be out of luck for the present.  There are several thing 
going on here:

1. --info is ignored for PIDs not in the cache.  That functionality 
could be added, but...

2. --info doesn't short-circuit --pid/--url, so even if --info was 
implemented for PIDs not in the cache, the download would still be 
initiated.  get_iplayer could be changed so that --info short-circuits 
(which seems like a good idea to me), but...

3. get_iplayer doesn't process URLs containing "/programmes/". I think 
that is because at the time the URL is being converted to a PID there is 
no way for get_iplayer to know if the URL refers to a single episode or 
a series.  However, get_iplayer already uses the metadata associated 
with a PID (downloaded after the URL is processed) to determine if the 
resource is an episode, clip or series, so the ban on URLs containing 
"/programmes/" might be obsolete code.  I would have to test the various 
types of "/programmes/" pages to know if it would be safe to remove the 
restriction, but that is a low priority item.